Seven Stars and Seven Stones
by Yrfeloran
Summary: Maglor reflects around the time of the Ring War.


There are too many memories here, in the West of the world - but the East is unforgiving and silent, and I always am drawn back here, to the last Sea and the journey I am too proud to take, to sit by the shore and watch as the sun sets, and see that last bright light that remains. I do not sing, much - in that they are wrong, and when I do it is wordless and Artless, and mingles with the sound of the waves. I find no joy in it.  
  
In song was the world created, and my songs still have some part of that ancient power - but my art is now spent in staying unremarked, invisible. I feel their eyes seeking me, and I -evade-...whether it be the great Eye in the east, or lesser powers, or my youngest cousin, or son-that-is-not. They think me consumed at last and passed to the dark Halls, even the most learned. But this is not so.  
  
Years unnumbered I have spent in -enduring-, through the Change of the World.for the light in the West keeps calling me to my doom, and I can escape it only through remaining alone and unmourned. I cannot let go on the world - for I fear nothing but forgiveness, as that alone I could not endure. I weave a shroud about myself with my art, and so do I pass the years, fruitlessly trying to hide -what-I-am- from the eyes of the Wise...for some eyes cannot be hidden from.  
  
Miriel's hands upon her loom do not weave me, nor my lady Mother espy me in her endless vigil at the Master Stone on the Lonely Isle...and to all lesser powers I am less than a ghost. But there are gazes I cannot avoid - the eagle-keen eyes of the Holy Pair on high Taniquetil.  
  
Do they grieve for me as for my father?  
  
And last, on his bright ship, the reason why I will not return, even if I could, and cannot return even if I would...for I would cast his ship into Everlasting Darkness if I stepped upon that Furthest shore, and naught would keep Doom at bay...I have Seen it, or dreamed it - I know not which. Am I mad?  
  
-Their oath shall drive them and yet betray them-.and the world with us, I deem.  
  
Sometimes I wonder what inspired my lady mother to gift the Men of high Westernesse with the works of my father's hands - each once held by one of her lost sons, though she keeps my father's for her own. I was there when she gave them, saw her copper-bright head on the last oarless ship that hailed from the Blessed Realm...though I made certain that I was not seen in the crowd. I sought the blessings of anonymity - and I have mutilated -that-which-I-am- to avoid her. Her gifts still speak to each other, and dimly I hear them in my dreams speaking with my brothers' voices...  
  
Maedhros cast down in fiery ruin and drowned beneath the river's wrath...Caranthir that was born in fire quenched in ice and darkness, and Amras with him...Celegorm and Curufin bent to dark purposes and fell ends, always murmuring to each other, though other minds direct their converse...mine that ever looks sadly back across the sea and last, ill- starred Amrod, who speaks now in the high tower, and ever dreams of consuming flame...these the last echoes of my mother's proud children, who scorned her for anguish and death and despair, before the moon ever rose over the Guarded Realm.  
  
And yet she still loves me, and will until the Final End, and I know this...and I am broken, for this fell fire still burns in me, and binds me ever more to his will.  
  
Is it a sin, to love one's father more than the gods themselves? More than the world? Only Russandol and I saw him before some Sight of the One came upon him - for only he could save the Light...was bright enough...for his craft was not only in the body of the work, but also the very fire within, as he immersed himself in his work as all great artists do. For my people it is not a figure of speech. And all that was great and glorious, high and valiant, what his mother had died for and his father cherished - all that was poured into the work of his hands, for the Light would suffer no impurity. And what was left was...a husk, consuming itself for the lack of what it had sacrificed unknowing for the good of the World, hungering ever for what it had lost - but the light was more glorious for it, for this sacrifice.  
  
Ever after did he seek to bind us to his will, to keep safe what he felt was his - for he could not take back what he had lost. And the sons of Indis, for all their wisdom and glory and kinship to those called noblest of elves did not understand...  
  
But I still loved him, and loved what he had given, that burned in the heart of his jewels - and followed him to my Doom.  
  
For there raped in the dark was my father's pride...and in the all- consuming night, there was fire, and burning, and the smell of blood, swords clashing and arrows singing...  
  
-Tears unnumbered shall they shed-... 


End file.
